• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

"I Need a New PC!" 2014 Part 2. Read OP, your 2500K will run Witcher 3. MX100s! 970!

Status
Not open for further replies.

kiyomi

Member
Bought my 4th different network adaptor to try and get the PC connected properly. Windows is doing my head in, saying it's connected and fine when it obviously isn't

Get like 10 seconds of connection, then it drops out for 30 seconds, all the while W8 is telling me I'm getting 270Mbps

Wish I could just wire it to the router

Talking about wi-fi?

Why not get a powerline adapter?
 

Stubo

Member
Hi! Long time reader first time poster. I've been lurking these threads for months and by reading it I've finally convinced myself that I need to build a new PC, so thanks! I'm looking forward to all the gaming goodness I've missed out on with my current, modest PC.

I'm intending on building a new PC and I was hoping for some advice about the parts I'm planning on buying these next few days.

I've currently got the following parts that I snapped up cheap: 2x4gig DDR3 Kingston Hyper / AMD R290 GB Windforce / 512GB Crucial MX100SSD

Budget: Reasonably not a concern - Australia
Main Use: Gaming= 5 / General Usage = 5
Monitor Resolution: 1920 x 1080
List SPECIFIC games or applications that you MUST be able to run well: Crysis 3, Metro, Battlefield, Football Manager
When will you build?: This weekend
Will you be overclocking?: Maybe...


I'm pretty set on the NZXT H230 (white) for my case as it looks awesome and should be fairly future proof in terms of fitting whatever I upgrade to in future. Also seems to be the only decent white case in this price range.

But I'm going back and forth about the CPU, Motherboard and PSU.

I'm wondering if I should go for the i5 4690 or the i7 4790. as they seem to perform fairly similarly on a lot of games at the moment but the 8 threads on the i7 seem like they could last me a bit longer between upgrades.

I don't think there's any difference between z97 or H97 motherboards unless I want to overclock (which I'm not sure I do) so I assume get the cheapest/one with the features I need?

And I think a 600watt PSU should suit this build now and in the future, I don't intend to go for Crossfire/SLI or go crazy with overclocks. Are there any brands I should avoid? I've been told Coolermaster PSU's suck in general but my current CM 650Watt PSU has lasted me 7 years so...

Any advice would be amazing and much appreciated. I'm really excited to be back into PC gaming so thanks for these threads!
If you can fit it into your budget definitely get a 4690k or a 4790k and a z97 motherboard. Overclocking is easier, safer and more reliable than ever and gives you a very nice bump in performance for the price of a z motherboard.
 
Talking about wi-fi?

Why not get a powerline adapter?

I did and it worked really slowly, and halved the speed of everyone else in the house :(

Don't have a clue what's wrong with it


Sounds like a router issue. Have you tried switching to/from 2.4GHz to 5Ghz? If all else fails, try to fall back to 20MHz and see if you hold a steady connection at 130Mbps..

Will ask my Dad about doing that, he has the admin rights to reach the webpage where you adjust router settings. There's no way of doing that through the PC's basic network options is there?
 

Smokey

Member
What has you thinking water now Smokey?

My temps. They usually look something like 83, 81, 68 when gaming. Of course the cards start to throttle as well. This is without an OC on the 4930k or on the cards themselves. So unlike in the past when I was talking about WC, I think I need to legit be serious about it in order to get the most out of this system.

Not too bad, it'll fit. Excellent. Rather go this route than grab a smaller HTPC case. Feel like I have to make concessions with a HTPC case versus getting a mid tower.

I recommend it. It comes in black, white, and I believe gunmetal? You can see in my pics it fits all of that equipment rather comfortably, and the tons of room in the back for cables is really nice.

Damn Smokey that Corsair Air 540 case is incredible looking...price is right, too...may have to move my main rig to it. What water cooler for your CPU do you have? Is that a Corsair H100 or H110 or something similar?

It is the H100i in push/pull. Good to see you back in the thread. You should post more :p
 

evanft

Member
I currently have an HD 6950. Would it be worthwhile to upgrade to an r9 290s if I could get one for $300, or should I just wait for 20 nm Maxwell? I game at 1080p and have no plan to go higher until 4k TVs are at a reasonable price. The only have that's really given me issues has been far cry 3. I haven't tried Crysis or some of the other big showcase games, though.
 
Will ask my Dad about doing that, he has the admin rights to reach the webpage where you adjust router settings. There's no way of doing that through the PC's basic network options is there?

No, it has to be done through the router's wifi configuration. The 802.11n standard is all over the place and not all wifi adapters play with it well.

Another alternative you can try in the meantime is to figure out what exact make/model your wireless card is, learn what chipset it uses, and download the latest drivers for that online. Old/bad drivers can account for miserable wireless performance.

Also, give Inssider 4 a try and see how crowded your area is in the 2.4 and 5GHz ranges. You may find that the channel your router is configured to is overcrowded or someone else's router is not playing 'fair' and interfering with yours (happens with Channel 6 often), when you access the router try moving your broadcast to Channel 1/3/12 and see if that helps.

Try relocationg your pc/wireless receiver away from walls, other electronic equipment, power lines and place it as high up as you can and see if that helps reception. I've seen cases where the adapter would report good reception but drop packets like crazy..

Just keep trying. That you're on your 4th wireless nic already means it's not an issue with hardware, it's either network/router or placement that's at fault.
 
No, it has to be done through the router's wifi configuration. The 802.11n standard is all over the place and not all wifi adapters play with it well.

Another alternative you can try in the meantime is to figure out what exact make/model your wireless card is, learn what chipset it uses, and download the latest drivers for that online. Old/bad drivers can account for miserable wireless performance.

Also, give Inssider 4 a try and see how crowded your area is in the 2.4 and 5GHz ranges. You may find that the channel your router is configured to is overcrowded or someone else's router is not playing 'fair' and interfering with yours (happens with Channel 6 often), when you access the router try moving your broadcast to Channel 1/3/12 and see if that helps.

Try relocationg your pc/wireless receiver away from walls, other electronic equipment, power lines and place it as high up as you can and see if that helps reception. I've seen cases where the adapter would report good reception but drop packets like crazy..

Just keep trying. That you're on your 4th wireless nic already means it's not an issue with hardware, it's either network/router or placement that's at fault.

Cheers for the advice :)
 

kennah

Member
WTS Mini tower gaming pc. $500 (includes shipping)

-BitFenix Prodigy Midnight Black / Black Steel / Plastic Mini-ITX Tower Computer Case
-Cooler Master GeminII S524 - CPU Cooler with Aluminum Fins and 5 Heatpipes
-Intel Core i5-3570K Ivy Bridge 3.4GHz (3.8GHz Turbo) LGA 1155 77W Desktop Processor Intel HD Graphics 4000 BX80637I53570K
-GIGABYTE GA-Z77N-WIFI LGA 1155 Intel Z77 HDMI SATA 6Gb/s USB 3.0 Mini ITX Intel Motherboard
-G.SKILL Ripjaws X Series 8GB (2 x 4GB) 240-Pin DDR3 SDRAM DDR3 1866 (PC3 14900) Desktop Memory Model F3-14900CL9D
-SeaSonic S12II 520 Bronze 520W ATX12V V2.3 / EPS 12V V2.91 80 PLUS BRONZE Certified Active PFC Power Supply
-GIGABYTE GV-R787OC-2GD Radeon HD 7870 GHz Edition 2GB 256-bit GDDR5 PCI Express 3.0 x16 HDCP Ready CrossFireX

01717_jDk5Xfp2gwU_600x450.jpg

00s0s_5VH0oTp7aF0_600x450.jpg

00d0d_ax7j1teIWKt_600x450.jpg
Amazing fucking deal!
 

riflen

Member
I currently have an HD 6950. Would it be worthwhile to upgrade to an r9 290s if I could get one for $300, or should I just wait for 20 nm Maxwell? I game at 1080p and have no plan to go higher until 4k TVs are at a reasonable price. The only have that's really given me issues has been far cry 3. I haven't tried Crysis or some of the other big showcase games, though.

The current rumours say that 28nm Maxwell could be available Oct / Nov 2014. 20nm is nowhere to be seen and if this rumour is true, you could be waiting another year after that at least for 20nm.
All this is conjecture and no-one knows anything for certain.

I'd say, if you want to play games now, buy the 290, which is a great card for the pricepoint. You can sell it on when you want to upgrade. PC GPUs are on a quick life cycle and what comes later will always be better. There is no escaping this and waiting will only mean you're spending the interim refreshing websites instead of playing some games.
 
Just ordered this today...my first small(ish) form factor PC build.

[imghttp://i.picpar.com/4HQ.jpg[/img]; [imghttp://i.picpar.com/EHQ.jpg[/img]

[imghttp://i.picpar.com/AHQ.png[/img]

awesome build, I plan to upgrade my ASUS 770 DCU2-OC to that case with a 4790K in the next few months!

Please post pics of the build once you start building! I'm very interested to see what exactly that case ships with, (cables, case fans, etc).
 

jfoul

Member
So, the Radeon R9 290X OC I got from Amazon still works great, and the warranty is good until 1-21-2017.

BUT...

The serial number on the card is for the U.K market, I'm in the U.S and bought it from the U.S Amazon. Hopefully I can still get warranty service. I'll probably call Gigabyte today, and find out for sure.
 

JakeD

Member
i'm thinking of buying an SSD, but i don't feel like moving my windows install over. are the benefits worth it if it's only games installed on it?
 

LilJoka

Member
Just ordered this today...my first small(ish) form factor PC build.


AHQ.png

Great build but why not a 4790K? Could of got 4.4Ghz all core turbo pretty easily with that cooler. And why not a 7200RPM drive?
SATA Cables? Motherboard will come with a few.
1 Exhaust fan would be enough, at most 1 intake one exhaust. How are you planning to setup the fans?
 
i'm thinking of buying an SSD, but i don't feel like moving my windows install over. are the benefits worth it if it's only games installed on it?

Dude, take the hit, move Windows over...

You'll get some benefit from having games and swap file on the ssd, but honestly if you're not getting all your Windows files off it... meh...
 

TopHat

Neo Member
Do I really need a 750 watt power supply to run a SAPPHIRE R9 290 4GB GPU? They have it listed as a requirement in the system requirements on Newegg. My current PSU is a Raidmax 630 watt running an HD 7870 and FX 8320 with 8 GB of memory and a 1 TB WD.

I've heard yes and no with this question. Any definitive answers out there?
 

LilJoka

Member
Do I really need a 750 watt power supply to run a SAPPHIRE R9 290 4GB GPU? They have it listed as a requirement in the system requirements on Newegg. My current PSU is a Raidmax 630 watt running an HD 7870 and FX 8320 with 8 GB of memory and a 1 TB WD.

I've heard yes and no with this question. Any definitive answers out there?

What is the exact model. A decent 550W PSU can run a 290.
 
Pentium g3258 overclocking article up on tom's

No surprises really, beats the Athlon 750k in games, loses in some productivity benches. Clocked at 4.5, which seems to be the average overclock.

If overclocking does indeed work on motherboards other than the z series, i'm really tempted to upgrade my i3 530..
 

LilJoka

Member

Yeah this PSU isnt the best. It has two 12v rails each at 22A. Therefore if the PCIE connectors are running off the same 12v Rail (most likely are) you can actually only have a GPU which draws 22A, which is 12v * 22A = 264Watts.

A good PSU has a single 12v rail which all components can draw from.

If you want to risk it with your PSU, you need to find out which cables are connected to which 12v Rail inside the PSU. Knowing that, hopefully a Molex to PCIE adaptor can be used and a 1 of the 2 PCIE connectors can be used to split the load over each 12v Rail.

I would not run any high end equipment on your PSU. Something like a Seasonic G Series 550W would work. Or one of the EVGA 600W, or a Coolermaster V550.

Duh, easy mistake. Are PCI slots all keyed that way?

Yep.

You wont really use them for anything nowadays. If you only need one PCIE (for example never going to SLI/Xfire) go Mini ITX.
 

kiyomi

Member
Yep.

You wont really use them for anything nowadays. If you only need one PCIE (for example never going to SLI/Xfire) go Mini ITX.

I'm gonna have at least one GPU and a sound card in there, as well as wi-fi adapter down the road, so I'm looking for at least 2 tbh.
 

LilJoka

Member
Pentium g3258 overclocking article up on tom's

No surprises really, beats the Athlon 750k in games, loses in some productivity benches. Clocked at 4.5, which seems to be the average overclock.

If overclocking does indeed work on motherboards other than the z series, i'm really tempted to upgrade my i3 530..

If you dont want to gamble on overclocking, get a H Series board an one of the Haswell Refresh i3's. To do any decent overclocking on the Pentium you still need a good Z series board.

I'm gonna have at least one GPU and a sound card in there, as well as wi-fi adapter down the road, so I'm looking for at least 2 tbh.

May i ask what the sound card will be for? What equipment will you use with it, or software?
You can get Mini ITX motherbaord with Wifi onboard.
 

TopHat

Neo Member
Yeah this PSU isnt the best. It has two 12v rails each at 22A. Therefore if the PCIE connectors are running off the same 12v Rail (most likely are) you can actually only have a GPU which draws 22A, which is 12v * 22A = 264Watts.

A good PSU has a single 12v rail which all components can draw from.

If you want to risk it with your PSU, you need to find out which cables are connected to which 12v Rail inside the PSU. Knowing that, hopefully a Molex to PCIE adaptor can be used and a 1 of the 2 PCIE connectors can be used to split the load over each 12v Rail.

I would not run any high end equipment on your PSU. Something like a Seasonic G Series 550W would work. Or one of the EVGA 600W, or a Coolermaster V550.

You're effectively reminding me how little I know about power supplies.

Let's say I wanted to go ahead and jump up to 750 watts. Would this PSU work?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139051
 

LilJoka

Member
You're effectively reminding me how little I know about power supplies.

Let's say I wanted to go ahead and jump up to 750 watts. Would this PSU work?

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16817139051

Its an OK PSU, but again the Corsair mid range stuff has fallen in quality since the last stuff (TX/HX range). Now they are taking advantage of brand awareness in this range.

You are better of buying a lower wattage, higher quality PSU like the ones i mentioned in my previous post.

For example, i run a 250W 3960X @ 4.8Ghz and an overclocked GTX 780 on a Corsair TX650. So if you are really consuming this much power look for a 650-750W. Otherwise a 550W is sufficient for any of the non enthusiast CPU lineup with any high end single GPU setup.
If you really want to open the doors for Xfire/SLI of top end GPUs go for an 850W PSU.
 

kiyomi

Member
May i ask what the sound card will be for? What equipment will you use with it, or software?
You can get Mini ITX motherbaord with Wifi onboard.

Just general usage, games, music etc. I've also heard that a sound card cleans up mic-in quality.

I did think about going the ITX route but I've already got the mATX case so I figure I might as well make use of the extra potential on offer. Wi-fi isn't a big deal either, it's just something that might get thrown in a year after everything's built or something.
 

LilJoka

Member
Just general usage, games, music etc. I've also heard that a sound card cleans up mic-in quality.

I did think about going the ITX route but I've already got the mATX case so I figure I might as well make use of the extra potential on offer. Wi-fi isn't a big deal either, it's just something that might get thrown in a year after everything's built or something.

A sound card is great if you have some sort of Audio Amplifier with Analogue inputs to which you are using some nice speakers etc.
It depends on the equipment you are connecting to it. If its a £50 Mic and Headphone, there is no point, the onboard sound is a lot better than the old days. If its a £250 mic, get a sound card.

I guess if you have an mATX case, you may as well stick with it, but try the onbaord audio before purchasing the sound card.
 
Great build but why not a 4790K?

Not impressed with the overclocking results that I've seen, a K model will only be about 10% faster within the thermal restraints of a SFF.

I'd rather wait to see what Broadwell K chips will do next year...may change then.

And why not a 7200RPM drive?

Temperature considerations, 3.5 drive attaches right next to the PSU in this case, and besides it's only to hold media files, speed not required, got the 2 SSD's for OS & Steam (plus any other game installs)

SATA Cables? Motherboard will come with a few.

Space restrictions and length....with 50cm slim ones, I can route and tuck the cables between the case and Motherboard, not possible with the shorter, thicker ones that come with the Mobo and would need to be routed over the top of the motherboard.

1 Exhaust fan would be enough, at most 1 intake one exhaust. How are you planning to setup the fans?

The case does not come with any fans included...these maybe overkill, maybe not...rather have them than not though.

Not sure how I'll set them up, just have to see what temps are like first.
 

mkenyon

Banned
H80i refunded, EK L120 kit going in:
Gorgeous! How'd you like working with the ZMT?
This thread is dangerous for me.

I barely even play PC games anymore, and I've already got a decent if aging rig (i5 2500k, 6950, fractal R3, 24" Dell IPS), yet I'm now considering selling the lot and doing a new build, for no other reason than I enjoy tinkering.

Anyone understand this? Or am I losing it?
Embrace it. Also get a 120Hz panel.
Damn Smokey that Corsair Air 540 case is incredible looking...price is right, too...may have to move my main rig to it. What water cooler for your CPU do you have? Is that a Corsair H100 or H110 or something similar?
The amount of stuff you can put in these cases is absolutely ridiculous. My recent build in one:

XpcJajml.jpg


That's two 280mm rads.
My temps. They usually look something like 83, 81, 68 when gaming. Of course the cards start to throttle as well. This is without an OC on the 4930k or on the cards themselves. So unlike in the past when I was talking about WC, I think I need to legit be serious about it in order to get the most out of this system.
It begins.

DSC_7352__38133.1400186770.1000.1000.jpg
 

jfoul

Member
So, the Radeon R9 290X OC I got from Amazon still works great, and the warranty is good until 1-21-2017.

BUT...

The serial number on the card is for the U.K market, I'm in the U.S and bought it from the U.S Amazon. Hopefully I can still get warranty service. I'll probably call Gigabyte today, and find out for sure.

Make sure you check the serial number if you bought one of these cards. Gigabyte U.S won't honor the warranty because it's a U.K serial number. The card is rock solid, but not having a warranty makes me nervous. I'm thinking about returning it to Amazon.
 
Anybody from UKGAF got a good recommendation on a mechanical keyboard that is easily available? I'm thinking the Coolermaster Quickfire XT but that's still £75. If there is anything cheaper that is easily available and preferably TKL and MX Blues, that would be awesome.
 

dark10x

Digital Foundry pixel pusher
Now that I'm using a dedicated capture PC I'm actually searching for a switch box of some sort for a USB 3.0 HDD that I need to share between two PCs (which are sitting side by side). I can't rely on networking as that simply won't be fast enough for working in Premiere.

I'd also like to grab a switcher for DVI connections as I need to input video from both consoles and PC. Due to the distance and current setup it would be easiest just to toggle between capturing PC or consoles.
 

kiyomi

Member
A sound card is great if you have some sort of Audio Amplifier with Analogue inputs to which you are using some nice speakers etc.
It depends on the equipment you are connecting to it. If its a £50 Mic and Headphone, there is no point, the onboard sound is a lot better than the old days. If its a £250 mic, get a sound card.

I guess if you have an mATX case, you may as well stick with it, but try the onbaord audio before purchasing the sound card.

That's what I'm gonna do. I'll be using decent headphones (M50s) and I have a pretty good-but-old 4.1 speaker setup, so I want to make the most of them. Thanks for the opinions. :)
 

hitgirl

Member
Is Unigine Valley not stable with current version Nvidia drivers? I have a fairly decent 780Ti that scores 3,160-3,200 but even when running no overclock I get white artifacts on the benchmark. When I run Firestrike, Heaven, or any other game I never seen any artifacts; stuff that stresses my video card to 99%.
 

riflen

Member
What kind and how many rads are we looking at for my setup? 540 won't be big enough huh

Mk has much, much more experience here than me (total water builds = 1), but I believe the rule of thumb is still 120mm of radiator per component in the loop. I cool two GPUs and a CPU using two 240x60mm radiators, but then I'm space constrained by my Fractal R2 Midi. The more radiator surface area the better!

I'm very impressed by the Alphacool radiators I picked. They're good quality and have nice touches like a lip inside the radiator, so you can't ruin it by accidentally driving a fan mounting screw through the fins.

Anybody from UKGAF got a good recommendation on a mechanical keyboard that is easily available? I'm thinking the Coolermaster Quickfire XT but that's still £75. If there is anything cheaper that is easily available and preferably TKL and MX Blues, that would be awesome.

This seems like a bit of a tall order. £75 is around the minimum for a decent mechanical from my experience. Either way you'll have more luck asking the mechanical keyboard thread I expect.
 

Reuenthal

Banned
I am going to order my parts in very few days

The one thing I am most undecided on is the graphics card

Basically I like the r9 290 vapor x (leaning on that) and the r9 290 tri x but I see some 780 at a similiar price. Namely EVGA GeForce GTX780 SuperClocked and several else. So price range is about $400something to $500.

I am just confused about 290 reliability issues, it seems there is an issue with black screens, but it isn't clear if it has to do with reference models. I also read that it has to do with elpida memory that is supposedly not used with tri X and vapor X? Since I am ordering for parts to be shipped to Cyprus from aboard I would rather not to have to RMA.


I would love to get the vapor x if it is reliable enough because performance, temperature wise seems pretty damn good and better than the 780 or other r290.
 

JackHerer

Member
Here's what I'm looking at right now for my build. Have not decided on a case or a water-cooling solution yet. It was going to be 4x SLI but you guys convinced me to just do 3 cards instead. Let me know if there is anyway I can improve this set up or you have any other suggestions. Probably going to start buying parts soon.

CPU: Intel Core i7 Extreme Edition 4960X 3.6GHz (Six-Core)

Mother Board: ASUS Rampage IV Black Edition X79 (Intel X79 Chipset)

RAM: 32GB DDR3 2400MHz Corsair Dominator Platinum DHX

GPU: 3x SLI Titan Blacks

PSU: 1500W Corsair AX1500i

Storage: 4x SSD (480GB Intel 730 Series) (+ RAID 5?)

Sound Card: Creative Sound Blaster ZxR
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom